In a year where we’re more interested in the best deals and with more reason to be, here’s a snapshot of where we’ll look this holiday season before we hit the stores (according to Deloitte)

40% turn to print

29% look at flyers

27% check out websites focused on holiday deals

24% go to retailers’ websites

Newspapers, magazines and flyers are still the most popular. The internet is not far behind and growing faster while print and flyers slowly decline. This means we’ll do more shopping online than ever before we buy offline.

Many x-mas info and retailers sites now have connections to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, MomsLikeMe , TriangleMom2Mom and MyBlackFridayDeals. This means we’ll go to stores with more recommendations, reviews and advice from others and we’ll be more certain about what we’re going to buy. We’ll feel more satisfied about having made smarter decisions. We’ll spend less time in crowded stores.

This means this holiday season the two biggest purchase drivers, word on mouth and content on the web, will be put to use more often and in more measurable ways. Kasey Lobaugh, a principle at Deloitte’s retail practice says “if you send out a URL on Twitter, you know how many people clicked on that URL.”

And it costs a whole lot less than print and flyers for manufacturers to know a lot more about what it takes to find advocates for their brands.

This means we should expect to see manufacturers offer great deals that we actually want for many more Xmas’ because it’s more affordable and consumers will reward the ones who do a good job at it with more business.